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30 I. THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.
A few words are necessary as to these expeditions. I
have already pointed out that the raid of Hugleik in the
sixth century was the first on record. But what is
generally called the Viking period dates from the last
quarter of the eighth century. In the year 787 our Saxon
chronicle notes for the first time the appearance of three
ships of Northmen on the English coast. It is questioned
whether they came from Norway or Jutland ;
but they seem
to have come up the Thames as far as Kingston. This was
the beginning of the Viking age of adventure and rapine,
in which Danes, Norwegians and Swedes all took part, and
renewed again, with more brutality and less readiness to
acquire civilization, the wonderful achievements of their
Gothic kinsmen in the third and following centuries.
Doubtless many Swedes, like Ragnar Lodbrok and his
sons, or descendants, were prominent in these Western
exploits; but, as I said before, the Swedes had a greater
aptitude than the other Northmen for adventures on the
shores of the Baltic and its hinterland. It was a Swedish
family that founded the Russian Empire under Rurik at
Novgorod, or Holmgard, as they called it, in 862. Indeed
the name Ros or Rus of the old writers was a name for the
Swedes who had that lively intercourse with the Byzan
tines, to which reference has already been made. It was
Swedes who furnished the famous Varangian guard at
Miklagard, or Constantinople.
22
The runes on the
Piraeus lion, now at Venice, are, I believe, Swedish.
It is not my duty to enter upon the details of the half
legendary, half historical exploits of the Viking Age, but
to point out, as a historian of religion, how the neglect of
the Scandinavian nations, particularly the Swedes, by their
Christian neighbours, brought disaster upon those who
neglected them. That sure punishment of neglect of duty
and opportunity falls upon nations and churches as well as
individuals is one of the laws of God s kingdom. The
neglect of Arabia by Eastern Christians permitted the up-
22
They were transferred from Vladimir the Great to Con
stantinople about 980 (S. H. 1
,
Vol. i., p. 280).
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